A Delicate, Unknowing Process
by sydney.sue
Summary: He wasn’t sure how he knew, never having been in love before, but he could feel it. It was something that had happened over time, a delicate, unknowing process that claimed him.


**Author's note: **

**Hey guys, long time no write? School has been crazy, and so has life, but it's nothing we don't know already. This is a one shot that's kind of been floating around in my head for a while, though I'm not sure if it makes sense. It's between Kakashi and an OC of mine, sort of just taking a look in psyche through their relationship. If it's confusing, I apologize. However, I kind of have another story having to do with the same characters that I hope to work on....**

**Anyways, enjoy :)**

* * *

She was so very broken.

Kakashi didn't realize it at first, because he was stunned at her appearance. It was like meeting someone from a fairy tale—Snow White in the flesh. She had eyes that looked like the clearest skies reflecting through ice. They were piercing, and almost alien against her ivory skin and white tumbling hair.

As more time passed, her strength confused him. She appeared almost willowy, somehow giving off the air of being fragile with her feminine shape and graceful movements… but that was nothing more than façade. He watched her, throw a dozen or so enemies over her shoulder without breaking a sweat. She was fast, agile—one of the most capable shinobi that Kakashi had ever witnessed. It was almost scary to see something so dangerous wrapped in such a beautiful package.

Then it was their similarity that captured him. It was never his intention to build any sort of friendship with this woman, but the more time they spent together, he couldn't help but notice how… _comfortable _it was to be around each other—easy and natural, like breathing. She must have felt the same, because soon, stories were shared. Kakashi's story wasn't an unfamiliar one, growing up in such a small village most people already knew. Yet she listened with interest and understanding when he spoke of his mother's untimely death during childbirth, his father's suicide, and the death of every one of his old teammates. She thanked him even, for telling her.

She did not speak much of her own life. Her past seemed to be something she was running from, and talking about it was like conjuring old spirits. She must have felt guilty about revealing so little when he opened up his own wounds for her to see. So she spoke in passing of her mother's disappearance at such a young age. She tried to speak of the death of her late husband, but in the end, could not finish the story…

Her _husband._

Tsuki and he were around the same age, both 19, though Kakashi was about four months older. Yet she seemed older, her shoulders stiff with an invisible weight. She thought of her life as over, now that she was widowed without children to take care of, and was simply passing time until she followed her late husband to the grave. She felt as if her love of a lifetime was gone and she would not be granted something so wonderful again.

Then Kakashi understood. Those moments where Tsuki would suddenly drift from the conversation, and turn her head towards an open window with blank eyes not truly looking at anything… when she'd clench her jaw and look down to avoid a memory he could not see. It came together then.

The moment he finally understood her mystery, he also found another:

Kakashi loved Tsuki.

He wasn't sure how he knew, never having been in love before, and still learning how to find relationships after losing his best friend and team members. He was awkward with relationships, joking and sheepish, but secretly uncertain.

But he could feel it. It was something that had happened over time, a delicate, unknowing process that claimed him. And once he understood it, he could do nothing but accept it and be at her mercy.

Kakashi didn't even think she realized. She certainly didn't realize how beautiful she was, or how her life was still just beginning.

Or how he wanted it to begin with him.

She was so very broken.

And he was too.


End file.
